Yeah, the line is so slippery, you just don’t know where to draw the slope.

(Actually, it’s a good article. I had a friend with Tourette’s syndrome in middle school, and sometimes he would lash out, and coping with the issue was a mix of him learning not to respond to teasing–not giving the tormentor the benefit of a reaction–and the rest of us having to learn not to push his buttons, because it hurt him deeply and often ended badly. I guess, sometimes kids who act out are responding quite reasonably, in a way, to things that other kids learned to swallow long ago. It’s still an important skill to be able to let it go when you’re angry, it’s just… it takes effort on both sides to settle a conflict, you know?)

(That’s not to say it’s an easy question when or when not to use restraint, as the article described. I’d say it would be an absolute last resort… if a teacher is using it regularly, either the teacher or the student should not be at the school, and my suspcion leans toward the teacher.)

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The aids in my classroom all get trained on proper restraint techniques, and their use is mostly to prevent injuries or get them to the safe room. Before that, we went through a full day of “how to keep yourself from escalating with the student.”

Those cases are really extreme. We never have to hold a student for longer than it takes to get him or her away from the rest of the kids.